Linger
by kyouya-haruhi-forever
Summary: Haruhi wants to move on. Kyouya fails to find any reasons to stop her. Yet there are some things in their life that can never be forgotten no matter how hard they try.


Disclaimer: Ouran is not mine. If it is, I will surely let Haruhi give Kyouya a chance.

* * *

**LINGER**

-- _**Overture**_ --

Haruhi opened the door knob of the room carefully, as though she was afraid of making any sounds out of her action. She took a couple of seconds longer to take in the scenery in front of her before she walked inside the room quietly.

The room was large, with a cosy balcony could be seen from the slightly ajar French doors at the other end of it. It was painted in the nuance of pale yellow and green with crème coloured carpet as its floor. There was a small bed located in the middle end of the room with a pastel coloured bed frame and its four bedposts are linked together by a soft and silky canopy on top of them. Its bed sheet with the same shade as the room was tucked in neatly under its coverlet, as if it had been left untouched for some time.

In the other end of the room, there was an expensive looking child tea party set, in which two large teddy bears were seated on the small pink chairs with a white circular table located right at the centre, leaving one unoccupied chair in between. Next to it stood a large and marvellous medieval toy castle.

Haruhi found her thin fingers that were gripping the bedpost next to her tightened as her eyes stumbled upon the big painting that was hung only slightly above the toy castle. It was a painting of a little girl with a pair of onyx eyes not much older than five years old smiling brightly as she hugged a bouquet of sunflowers that were too big for her little figure. The simple white tube dress that she wore and her fair complexion seemed to bring out the brunette colour of her shoulder length hair even more.

Haruhi's breath caught in her throat as she walked closer to where the painting was. For a second she looked hesitated as she tried to reach for it. Yet her hand stopped midair before it could even come in contact with the painting, as though it pained her to even think of touching it in the first place. There was a throbbing pang prickling her heart as she froze on the spot, unable of taking her sight away from the painting before her or doing anything more than that.

After it seemed like forever, Haruhi turned her back from the painting almost at once and stormed hurriedly out of the room without taking a second glance at the painting or anything else in there. She did not seem to realise how cold and trembling her hands were or the tears that were streaming silently from her big amber eyes by the time she leant her back against the closed door on the other side of the room.

--

The hallway where she stood at the moment seemed to be oddly deserted, as though somebody had instructed all the staff in the house to not let anybody go there in the first place.

There was a heavy sigh escaped from her thin lips before Haruhi walked towards where a black medium-sized suitcase was.

Without hesitating for a second longer, Haruhi pulled the suitcase and left the place.

All she wanted to do at that exact moment was to go as far away as she could. Away from the room, the house, and the man with the pair of onyx eyes that were so alike with the ones that the little girl in the painting had.

--

It was already past midnight when Kyouya reached home that night. He was not as busy as he usually was that he could actually return home earlier if he wanted to. And just like what he did lately for countless of days, he chose not to. These days he had been feeling inexplicably stifled with the deafening silence that the house brought. Therefore, it was easier for him to stay back at his office, immersed himself in his works, his goals, his ambitions, basically almost anything, as long as they could make him stay busy. He would only go home once he felt dead tired; vainly hope that his exhaustion would finally enable him to sleep and forget - something that he found it difficult to do nowadays.

He realised that the method was not working as what he expected it to be. Because he still had the nightmares.

No, it was not nightmares; his heart would not allow him to call them that way.

It was because of the fact that he would no longer be able to hear or to see any of those dreams translated into reality anymore that they were keep haunting him day and night, just like nightmares.

Her laughs, her pouts, her cries, her hugs, her chatters; all those privileges were no longer his to claim.

Therefore, he would feel the need to return to the same pattern the following day after self-blaming himself for not trying hard enough to forget her or working busily enough that he would finally have no time to be reminded of her missing presence.

He continuously pretended for the world to see that Kyouya Ootori was not a type of person who would be affected by small matters like the past for example. He could never undo what had happened no matter how wealthy and powerful he was to begin with anyway. And thus he would carry on pretending even at times when he did not need to. It was the easiest thing to do for him now.

Yet when Kyouya opened his uncharacteristically empty bedroom, he finally realised that he had completely forgotten about one person. The only person he should never have left to suffer alone.

Haruhi Fujioka.

No. She was no longer used that surname anymore.

Haruhi Ootori.

His wife.

He should have realised that he was not the only person who felt miserable these days. And he should have known better that he was not the only person who was capable of acting and pretending as though everything was all right - that there was nothing amiss in their life.

Haruhi was never the type of person who would let him feel worry. She was the type of person who would always stay besides him in silence, without feeling the need to give him empty consolation words, and merely watching him quietly with her big amber eyes. He had never realised it until it came back to him at that exact moment, that the sparkles that used to glimmer playfully in those eyes were already long gone. It must have been vanished since the day she had cut her brunette hair short - in the same hairstyle that she used to have when they were still studying in Ouran. The very same day he accidentally snapped at her for reminding him too much of a certain little girl with a shoulder length brunette hair that he would like to forget.

He should have learnt to appreciate her more.

He should have known that he could never bear the thoughts of living without her.

Yet when Kyouya reached the side table next to the marvellous bed inside their posh bedroom only to find a single sheet of paper with a platinum ring placed on top of it, Kyouya knew that his realisation might have come much too late.

--

Kyouya took the platinum ring and placed it on his open palm gently as though he was afraid that he might break it. He suddenly realised just how tired he was at that point as the dreading feeling of loneliness came to him.

Haruhi had chosen to move on. She had decided to leave him for good; for him to carry on with his life in the house that was now full with nothing but memories.

Before Kyouya crumpled the letter with his other hand, from the corner of his eyes, he still could see the big capital heading on top of it:

'MARITAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT'

-- _to be continued_ --

**A/N:** I can only admit that I am a big sucker of Kyouya & Haruhi. Tell me what you think of this new story.

Hum... I wonder which story I should update next.


End file.
